Tag Sherlock Holmes

Power Rangers Beast Morphers, “Hypnotic Halloween” Review

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

***As big a Power Rangers fan as I am, I must admit: I’m a little behind on modern PR. Here’s where I attempt to fix that, as I check out episodes of Power Rangers Beast Morphers!***

Cast Halloween shot, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, Hypnotic HalloweenSERIES: Power Rangers Beast Morphers
EPISODE: S26:E21 – “Hypnotic Halloween”
STARRING: Rorrie D. Travis, Jazz Baduwalia, Jacqueline Scislowski, Abraham Rodriguez, Jamie Linehan (Voice)
WRITERS: Becca Barnes, Alwyn Dale, Maiya Thompson, James Collins, Cameron Dixon
DIRECTOR: Oliver Driver
PREMIERE DATE: October 19, 2019
SYNOPSIS: The Rangers are hypnotized into believing they are their Halloween characters.

New around here? Check out the Power Rangers review archive!

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

Here we have one of our season-requisite holiday clip shows. The “Rangers think they’re their Halloween characters” thing is a creative framing device, though.

This episode aired on October 19, which would seem to indicate it chronologically falls between “Tuba Triumph” and “Sound and Fury.” But oddly enough, every source I’ve checked lists it as the 21st episode of the season. Perhaps that’s indicative of the order the episodes were produced in…?

Hold on, so Steel wasn’t effected by Vargoyle rewriting the memories of everyone in Coral Harbor, but he’s effected by Scrozzle’s hypnotic streaming service? Doesn’t necessarily make sense from an in-universe perspective. But if you let Steel stay coherent, this episode starts to feel a lot like “Rewriting History.” So I guess we’ll let it slide.

Viking Zoey, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, Hypnotic Halloween

This episode feels like it was a lot of fun to make. Particularly for Jacqueline Scislowski, whose loud and boistrous Viking character was a radical departure from the often shy Zoey.

Speaking of Vikings, was Rorrie D. Travis channeling Sean Connery for his Viking impression? Is he even old enough to know who Sean Connery is?

Jazz Baduwalia might have needed some more direction as Sherlock Holmes. It seems like he was told, “Just look through the magnifying glass a lot. That’ll make you look like Sherlock Holmes. I mean, he always did that, right?”

Here’s how much of an old school Power Rangers geek I am: I remembered that Billy also dressed up as Sherlock Holmes way back in the season one episode “Life’s a Masquerade.” Also Tommy, much like Steel in this episode, dressed as Frankenstein. Actually, Billy dressed as a mad scientist in season two’s “Zedd’s Monster Mash,” much like Nate does in this episode. Deliberate homage? More likely, it’s a sign that stock Halloween costumes haven’t changed much in two decades…

You know who would have been perfect for this episode? Ben and Betty. And yet, they weren’t here for whatever reason.

This was actually a pretty intense zord fight for a clip show. Nicely done.

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.

Rob Watches Star Trek: Waiting For Greatness

Rob Siebert 2 Comments
“Rob Watches Star Trek: Data is a Sex Robot?”
***What happens when I, a 30-something-year-old fanboy, decide to look at the Star Trek franchise for the first time with an open heart? You get “Rob Watches Star Trek.”***

SERIES: Star Trek: The Next Generation
TITLE: S1:E7. “Lonely Among Us”
STARRING: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn
WRITERS: Michael Halperin (Story), D.C. Fontana (Script)
DIRECTOR: Cliff Bole
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: November 2, 1987
SYNOPSIS: An alien entity takes possession of several crew members, as the Enterprise is assigned to escort delegates from feuding alien races to peace talks.

By Rob Siebert
Trekkie-in-Training

These first few episodes of TNG that I’ve watched are interesting, in that they’re, quite frankly, uninteresting. And in the case of this episode, rather stupid at times. (I’m specifically looking at Data doing his Sherlock Holmes impression.)

“Lonely Among Us” has a story that might have been plucked out of the original series. Various crew members are possessed by an invisible alien entity, all the while two feuding alien factions are on board the ship. In many ways, it’s textbook Star Trek. It may also be a microcosm for what’s been wrong with the show (at least what I’ve seen) thus far.

On paper it makes sense. Especially with 30 years of hindsight. You want to make a new Star Trek show two decades after the first one. What do you do? You look at what worked on the old show, and try to at least partially fit that mold. Ergo, you get episodes like “The Naked Now” and “Lonely Among Us,” which feel like dressed up episodes of the ’60s show.

It’s not an accident that this happened during a season in which several writers from the original show were brought in. In addition to Gene Roddenberry’s involvement with the show, D.C. Fontana became both a writer and an associate producer.

It all makes sense. These people know Star Trek because they created Star Trek. They’re the keepers of the flame. You’d be silly not to involve them on some level. But, to use an example from the same era, there’s a reason that Batman: The Animated Series didn’t have the same kind of stories the ’60s Batman show did. It was a tonal mismatch, of course. But it also didn’t fit with what the new show needed to be in order to succeed.

Even all these years later, as someone just discovering these shows for the first time, this first season of TNG very much lives in the shadow of the original series. How could it not? The way you fight that is to allow this new show to pave its own way and establish its own identity. You can’t do that while mimicking the old show.

More than 30 years later, Star Trek: The Next Generation is still looked at with love and reverence. But I, as a newbie, am still patiently waiting for greatness…

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.